Should all errors made by foreign language pot

Should all errors made by foreign language learners
be corrected at any cost?
(Overcorrection should be avoided at any cost)

Error correction may prove to be a difficult task to
language teachers because it involves decision-making
about what to correct, when to correct, how to correct and
how much to correct. Several approaches to correcting
student errors have been suggested. One of them holds
that all errors made by learners should be corrected at any
cost. On the surface, this approach seems to be of much
benefit to students. However, a close examination will
reveal that this approach to error correction will do
students more harm than good.

The first reason that teachers will undermine students’
confidence if they correct student mistakes all the time. It
is not difficult to realize the demotivating effect of this
overcorrection. Perhaps there is nothing more
disconcerting or intimidating to students than to be
interrupted every time they make a mistake in oral
practice. Distracted and discouraged in this way, they may
forget what they intend to say or feel that they will never
be able to say anything right. The damage that over
written correction does to students is no less serious. Most
students will feel a sense of failure or defeat when they
see their piece of written work covered with red
corrections and comments from the teacher. Only very few
well-motivated students will not lose heart in this case.
Thus the teacher’s over emphasis on accuracy at the
expense of fluency or comprehensibility has a detrimental

effect on students indeed. It goes against the principle of
language teaching that part of the teacher’s job is to
support and encourage students, not to discourage or
demotivate them.

The second reason is that overcorrection fails to focus
students on genuine errors. Apparently, teachers who tend
to overcorrect think that all incorrect forms produced by
learners are dangerous and need to be fixed. However,
their indiscriminate treatment of student errors may
backfire because students may not understand what is
worth correcting. There are many kinds of errors or
mistakes and if all the errors or mistakes are picked up
and dealt with, students will assume that they are of equal
importance. In reality, some of the inaccuracies produced
by learners are just unfortunate mistakes resulting from
mere confusion, from lapses of memory, from slips of the
tongue or the pen, etc. Given time and help or guidance
form the teacher and friends, learners can remedy these
mistakes themselves. In contrast, genuine errors reflect
students’ lack of knowledge about the target language. For
example, they do not know what the correct form or word
should be or they believe that what they are saying or
writing is correct. In other words, these errors are clear
indications of problem areas to students and as such they
should be addressed immediately if teachers do not want
them to persist and hinder learning in the long run.

The last and also the most important reason is that
teachers who are in favor of constant error correction fail

to realize that mistakes are a natural and important part of
learning. If teachers insist on putting right anything
incorrect in students’ oral and written communication, they
will over time reinforce the false belief that mistakes of any
type are something to be feared and should be avoided at
any cost. However, in so doing, they ignore a very basic
fact that even native speakers, those who are supposed to
have a good, if not perfect, command of the language,
make mistakes all the time. The main reason is that
communication, oral or written, is a complex activity. To
process the language people have to simultaneously
make use of several language systems such as syntax,
lexis, phonology. They also need to draw on their
communicative competence to use the language
appropriately. It is understandable why any instance of
using the target language is quite challenging to learners.
It is therefore quite unrealistic to ask learners’ speech or
written work to be faultless. So teachers have to be open
to the fact that mistakes made by learners are natural and
inevitable. What is more important, not all mistakes are
regrettable and should be condemned; they have a role to
play too. As an expert in language teaching puts it,
mistakes are sometimes “healthy proof that learning is
taking place”. It may sound strange but it is true. A telling
example can be found when students are adventurous
enough to experiment with the structure or the word or the
sound they have just learned instead of sticking to the safe
old one. In this case the students’ brave attempt should be
encouraged rather than thwarted.

In summary, error correction is an area in which teachers
can offer direct service to students. However, they will do
their students a grave disservice if they insist on
overcorrection. The implication for foreign language
teaching is that remedial work done by the teacher should
highlight important mistakes to encourage students to use
the correct form to improve their performance. Moreover,
teachers should be sensitive enough to tolerate some
errors, especially those that are evidence of learning
taking place. Such an attitude to errors on the part of the
teacher will have positive effects on students the most
important of which is to boost their confidence and
overcome their fear of making mistakes.